


The Ballad of Jeff and Riss

by FuzzyBlueStockings



Category: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Genre: 1940s, Alternative Perspective, American Politics, Backstory, Cold War, Corruption, Cynicism, Democracy, Doubt, Elections, Environmentalism, F/M, Feminist Themes, Gen, Having Faith, Idealism, Love, Marriage, Nature, Patriotism, Period-Typical Sexism, Political Campaigns, Political Parties, Politics, Post-Canon, Pragmatic Idealism, Red Scare, Resilience, Self-Discovery, US Senate, Unrequited Love, Washington, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-01-31 21:48:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12690852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuzzyBlueStockings/pseuds/FuzzyBlueStockings
Summary: They were a pair of fish out of water: Jefferson Smith, still a Washington yearling, and Clarissa Saunders, a newcomer to Jeff's home state. Uncharted territory lay ahead for both. And even when there's no clear adversary—though for them, Jim Taylor was by no means the last—fighting the good fight is never straightforward, never easy, and never finished.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tam_Cranver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tam_Cranver/gifts).



> Confession: I consider this story as much a present for myself as it is for you. I hope you'll forgive me, but it's something I felt I needed to write. 
> 
> Betaed by RobberBaroness

The words ran through her head again and again, as fast as the ground moved beneath her. They were her own words, and yet not. That wasn't her anymore. Not entirely.

“Look, Senator, I wasn’t given a brain just to tell a Boy Ranger what time it is.”

Clarissa Saunders had a brain, all right, but a lot of good it was doing her now. All she knew for certain was that if her former self, all jaundiced eye and dry certainty, could somehow catch a glimpse of who she’d become, she’d have been aghast. Because from that vantage point, this much was clear: She'd lost it. She’d gone out of her gourd.

For here she was, completely in thrall to a fellow whom she’d once called a flag-waving infant—and with good reason! She still had enough sense to see that. By all accounts, Jefferson Smith didn’t belong in the Senate. He hadn't the faintest clue what he was doing. But there lay the paradox of it, because he’d also proven to be exactly the kind it needed more of. He was one heck of an orator—a prodigy, even. And for all his remaining ignorance, his moral compass pointed true north, and he was willing to push himself beyond human endurance to follow it. He was a different kind of Don Quixote, one who somehow made those windmills change into giants before your eyes as he raced toward them. And now, despite herself, she saw them, too.

Yet as she looked out the window of the cross-country streamliner carrying her to places unknown, she felt uneasy. It had all happened so fast: the bill, the hearings, that glorious, gut-wrenching filibuster. And that little scene at the hospital, which still made her cringe at the memory of it.

“Saunders,” Jeff rasped, eyes still half-closed. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

She put a hand on his head. “Shh. Jeff, please. Save your voice.”

But he continued. “I was thinking, I—I wanted to invite you back home with me.”

He looked up at her.

“But that wouldn't be right, would it? That note you sent me, I tell you, it gave me the biggest thrill of my life. But I’ve got to face facts: You probably wrote it just to keep me going.”

Clarissa, taken aback, yanked her hand away and stood up.

“So that’s it, is it? Little Boy Blue’s gotten so wised up that he’s pegged me as—a what? A mercenary? A Mata Hari in waiting?”

Jeff shut his eyes.

“I didn’t mean it like that, Saunders. You were only trying to help.”

“I don’t play around with people’s affections, thank you. I’m not your old pal Susan Paine.”

“Now Saunders, I—”

“ _That note was on the level, Jeff!_ And I’ll be _hanged_ if you’re going to claim otherwise.”

She forced herself to meet his dumbstruck gaze.

“Or is it you? Are you the one who wants out of this? Well, do you?”

To rail at him like that, after what he’d been through! She had no idea what came over her. Fatigue? Guilt? After all, she _had_ been a little cruel to him in the beginning, before he’d proven himself to be something other than a bug-eyed hayseed.

Jeff scrambled upright. His parched lips broke into an awed, slightly confused smile.

“Why Saunders, I—Clarissa! You mean it?”

She gasped back a sob before replying:

“Of course, you dope!”

And that’s how, days later, just before sunrise, Clarissa found herself sipping coffee in the dining car of a train barreling across a wheaten moonscape—Kansas, maybe, or perhaps eastern Colorado.

She still didn’t know quite what possessed her. She was throwing away everything she’d worked for. But of course, what _was_ there to work for? Before Jeff’s arrival, she’d lost sight of it. The spark that ignited her ambition had never been money or prestige, but seven years of the daily grind and the stench of dirty dealings had all but snuffed it out. Jeff, well, he was offering something irresistible: a return ticket from cynicism. Was she a fool for thinking such a thing existed? Even now, she couldn’t be sure.

The train groaned to a stop at a crossing as another passed in front of it. She looked out at the bald prairie and a broad, meandering swath of water that cut through it. Not too far out, she could see a small group gathering by its edge, people wearing what looked to be their meager Sunday best. She saw an older man in white wade in, and after him, a nervous teenager in braids.

“What the—” she wondered out loud.

“Oh, that?” The voice behind her had attained a new kind of homespun authority. “River baptism. Never seen one before?”

She turned around. “You should be asleep, Jeff.”

“Nah, I’m caught up for the next week, I think. But that’s what they’re doing.”

“I see.”

He took the seat across from hers. “They didn’t do it like that in Baltimore, I take it?”

She laughed. “Are you kidding? You try that in any of our water, and the gunk would stick to you for years. No thanks, we stayed indoors.”

She glanced down at her coffee.

“Say, what are you, anyway? Do your people dunk their heads in rivers?” There was still so much she didn’t know about him, or where she was going, or what she was getting into.

Jeff tilted his head back.

“Oh, let’s see. How do I explain this? I was brought up Methodist—that’s my mother’s side. Confirmed at thirteen. But as I grew older, well, I don’t know, but to me the home of the Almighty is way out in the wilderness, where it’s just Him and me. Not in any church I’ve been in. And as strange as it sounds, there's so much beauty in this world that I just can't bring myself to believe it's been dirtied up by original sin. Not when there's—”

Something had apparently plunked him back down to earth. His expression turned sheepish.

“Why, this has gotta be boring you out of your skull.”

“Not a bit,” insisted Clarissa. “Only, well, I gather that kind of talk might not play too well back home.”

Jeff frowned in consideration. “Hadn't thought of that. I guess I ought to be more careful, if I want to stay in public life. Some folks build their whole lives around the church, you see. And for me to just—well, I could lose a lot of support that way.”

“I can't stand that,” she replied with a grim edge to her voice. “All that holy-roller stuff. It should have no bearing on any of this.”

Jeff took her hand. “Well, if you’ve taught me anything, it’s to see things as they are and not just as they ought to be.”

“I know, but this is basic—separation of church and state! I mean, how much of a hick do you have to be to just—”

“Now look,” Jeff interrupted, his tone now uncharacteristically stern, “I can tell you one thing: You won’t do me one bit of good by throwing that word 'hick' around. The people in my state, they—they’re good people, and if I didn’t think so I’d have thrown Governor Hopper’s offer right back in his face. And I mean that. So if I were you, I’d retire that word right now. All right?”

“All right,” she said quietly.

He moved over to her side of the table and put his arm around her.

“Besides, that last fellow you called a hick—well, you remember what happened to him, don’t you?”

Clarissa returned his self-conscious smile.

“Last I heard, he’d gotten himself engaged."

She leaned back against him.

"But I make no apologies. Serves him right."


	2. Chapter 2

In a way, Clarissa had stuck her first toe in the water the night they drafted that old pie-in-the-sky camp bill. Jeff had lost himself in a happy tangent about his father, who’d told him that life should be lived “as if you’d just come out of a long tunnel.” For some reason, that phrase packed a wallop. She remembered being seized with a funny feeling: a taste of lightness, of freedom, of air. She hadn’t realized ‘til then how much she craved it.

Sure enough, her entry into Jeff’s home state involved an actual trip through a tunnel, one bored through the base of a vast mountain ridge. She felt a little let down by how literal the metaphor was, plus the fact that, for all Jeff’s rhapsodic flights of fancy, the land on the other side looked no different from what came before. But they were there all the same, and thirty minutes later came the announcement for Jackson City.

Jeff could barely contain himself. “Gee, Clarissa, I just know you’re gonna love it. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. The mountains, the fields, the sky—big and beautiful as all get-out. I can tell you, that’s one thing I could never get used to in Washington. Always elbow-to-elbow with people, waiting for taxis and streetcars and—well, not here. Out here, I feel like a man and not a sardine. I can just stretch my arms, and—”

The train pulled into the station, bringing into view a sea of people, their banners and children held aloft.

“You were saying?” Clarissa deadpanned.

“W—well, gosh!” Jeff stammered. “Y—you don’t suppose they’re here for—”

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “No, I’m sure they’re just waiting for a streetcar.”

Almost immediately, the crowd ascended the platform and swept them up into a ticker-tape parade. News had indeed gotten home of Jeff’s feat, of Senator Paine’s resignation, and of the sordid workings of the Taylor machine. Thus all of Jackson City, or near enough, had come out to greet them. People of every age and stripe. One older woman in a blue checked dress pushed through and shouted something into Clarissa’s ear. She couldn’t understand it, but through the din she recognized the voice: Jeff’s mother. They shook hands before she and Jeff were carted away.

The hullaballoo lasted for days. An assembly was held at City Hall, including, among other tributes, a special song composed and sung by the Boy Rangers. Jeff caught Clarissa’s eye with a cautionary look. 

“Don’t laugh.”

“Who, me?” was her coy, wordless reply.

She restrained herself. Through all four verses. Even through the valiant but ill-fated attempt to rhyme “corruption” with “gumption.”

A few days later, another ceremony was held at City Hall. A small one: only them, the justice of the peace, the mother of the groom, Governor Hopper, and the state attorney general. Oh, and the throng of well-wishers that had gathered outside, who bombarded the unsuspecting couple with a hail of rice when they emerged.

It was all good fun, but there was little time to revel in it. If Jeff’s predicament had been daunting even as an honorary stooge, it now looked like a hundred-foot climb up a brick wall.

Now, most people in his position would have quietly served the remainder of the term before bowing out. That way, the state could elect a real candidate—one with legislative experience, or at least some background in law, politics, or economics. Even a businessman would do. Jeff was none of these, and he’d toyed with the idea of trying to campaign against corruption independently, which would give him freedom and perhaps more of a chance to do some good. But Governor Hopper asked him to run in 1940. The state needed someone who wasn’t an unknown quantity, he said, or a crackpot, or a man associated with the Taylor machine, which the state was now charged with dismantling. The people trusted Jeff, and so did he.

Jeff agreed to run, but he could not sleep that night.

Now he had to be a real, live senator: No head-pats, no mulligans, no pardons for his ignorant missteps. And no fatherly Senator Paine, who had received a suspended sentence and was now on some sort of rest cure up in Canada.

Even Jeff’s status as a modern-day folk hero would only take him so far because, despite appearances, his popularity wasn’t universal. It certainly didn’t extend to the remaining Taylor men, or those left without jobs after the breakup of his energy and newspaper holdings.

But he had the resources of Jackson City U., which had offered him a modified correspondence course to help get him up to speed. And above all, he had Clarissa.

The next few years felt like an all-out cram session for an exam that never ended. Fiscal policy, foreign policy, Social Security, infrastructure, land rights, water rights, Indian fishing rights. It was a crash course for Clarissa, too, as she found herself having to play a much greater role than she ever had for Paine or Foley.

She hired Jeff a small staff. She coached him nightly on the Standing Rules, on law, and on the art of negotiation. She answered letters, planned out his schedule, prepared his briefings, helped write his speeches, craft his platforms, balance his books. And she tried her best to calm his nerves, which still got the better of him on occasion. Her only salvation was the elder Mrs. Smith, a sterling rebuke to every mother-in-law joke ever told, who had moved in and was taking care of domestic chores.

It wasn’t as if Clarissa were doing _all_ the work—Jeff was just as busy playing catch-up. But there was little glory in it. And if she were perfectly honest, this was not what she wanted out of a marriage.

To his credit, Jeff was hardly unaware. Thus the one time he caught her shaking her head and muttering, “Boy, if I didn’t love you…” he turned to her, took her face in his hands, and replied solemnly, “Don’t I know it?”

And he followed that with what was to become a familiar refrain: “When all this is over, I’m going to take you camping.”

She grimaced. “I don’t think so, Jeff.”

“No?”

“No. That’s for you and your Boy Rangers. Go climb mountains and skin fish with them. But leave me out of it.”

He responded with a look of mild defeat.

“All right, City Mouse. Have it your own way.”

As the governor predicted, he did win the election; a member of the opposing party, a former lumber company lawyer, took the other vacant seat. But it was still a struggle for Jeff to be taken seriously in Washington. It was one thing to talk your head off in a much-ballyhooed filibuster, another entirely to be a persuasive, effective lawmaker. And Jeff wasn’t that. Not yet. Clarissa still sat in the gallery, but she knew that they were past the point where she could throw him cues. So if he made a mistake, she could only watch and writhe.

"We are not speaking of national security, Senator," the senate president gently chided him after an early fumble. "We are speaking of the Securities Exchange Act. I suggest you learn the difference."

A ripple of laughter swept through the chamber. Clarissa silently ground her teeth.

“I don’t know what you’re playing at, Saunders,” said one grinning Southern senator, who’d cornered her in the lobby afterward. “You might as well face it: Your boy’s never gonna outgrow his short pants.”

A few potential replies came to mind—“He’s not ‘my boy,’” “I go by my married name,” or even an icily bureaucratic, “If you wish to retain the use of your arm, you will kindly unhook it from my waist”—but she settled for a scowl, a leftward dodge, and a quick exit. On the way home, she reflected on the fact that the man’s honeyed accent used to make her weak in the knees. Well, no more of that!

Incidentally, he was not the only person who cast Clarissa as a mother figure to Jeff, and it got on her nerves like nothing else. But this tended to happen more in Washington than in Jeff’s state, where she felt so deeply out of her element that the scales tipped back a little.

Because that’s still how she thought of it: Jeff’s state. Still a foreign country to her, despite its initial warm welcome. Things moved at a slower pace there, which tested her patience. Her tailored suits stuck out like a sore thumb amid all the straw hats and gingham. The people were friendly enough, but often with what felt like a subtle undercurrent of judgment. And the feeling was especially strong when she ventured outside the capital. When she came face-to-face with tenant farmers and copper miners and sawmill workers and rail riders, she never knew quite what to say to them—their sullen, haggard faces all bore the same message: “You think YOU’ve had it bad?”

Over there, they took to calling her “Riss." Jeff, too. It was an odd, somewhat ill-fitting nickname, but she didn't complain. She figured it had a certain frontier kick to it and would open more doors for her than “Clarissa,” a name that had forever dogged her with its literary pretensions.

Washington still felt more like home, and Clarissa was on hand to help Jeff with all its unwritten rules and nuances. Jeff, predictably, was over the moon about their first invitation to dine at the White House. She received his enthusiasm with as much of her own as she could muster. But she knew what awaited them. The food. The worst in town. It was more or less common knowledge. She made no mention of this to Jeff—she hadn’t the heart to dampen his excitement—but steeled herself and secretly invested in a fresh bottle of Bromo-Seltzer.

“One of those days, eh?” said the sympathetic clerk at the drugstore.

“It will be. My husband and I are having dinner at the White House.”

The woman’s eyes went wide. “Oh, honey.”

It was an honor, of course. The President shook their hands. Mrs. Roosevelt, whom Clarissa had always admired, struck up a lively conversation with her about housing. And, as predicted, by the time Senator and Mrs. Smith went home, their stomachs had mounted a violent protest against the previous hour’s abuses.

Jeff was in a daze.

“What the heck is ‘Jellied Bouillon Salad,’ anyway?”

“Jeff, don’t,” said Clarissa with a pained laugh. “I’ve been trying not to think about it.”

“I don’t get it, Riss. He’s the President of the United States! He should have the best there is!”

Clarissa poured the Bromo into two tall glasses. “It’s Mrs. Roosevelt. She insists on her cook from Hyde Park. Mrs. Nesbitt’s terrible, and everyone knows it. But she insists.”

“But why?”

She shrugged before handing Jeff his glass. “Friendship, I guess.” She gulped hers down. “Or solidarity with the common woman. But also—oh, how should I put this? There’s also a rumor going around that it’s Mrs. Roosevelt’s revenge for her husband’s, er, indiscretions.”

Jeff stiffened. “That’s our president you’re talking about.”

His face shone with a tender shade of indignation, as if he were a child who’d just been told that there’s no Santa Claus but refuses to believe it. Clarissa saw no need to press the issue.

“Pardon me. So it is.”


	3. Chapter 3

But it begs to be repeated that Jeff, while still naïve in the ways of Washington, was no slouch. Before long, his ad-hoc legal education started paying dividends, and by his term’s halfway point he’d begun to distinguish himself in the Senate, earning a few committee appointments and no little respect from his colleagues. And the last of the Taylor trials concluded. Jim Taylor had received a slap on the wrist, most agreed, but he’d been forced to sell off many of his assets. And, crucially, his word was no longer law.

And so it came to pass that, with equal parts relief and reluctance, Clarissa delegated away a few of her responsibilities. She still wasn’t sure that Margaret McWhorter, a buck-toothed, disconcertingly young aide from Jeff’s state, was up to the task of replacing her. But she welcomed the chance to let go of the reins a little. She began taking part in the activities of the other Senate wives, who were occasionally joined by Senator Hattie Caraway, the sole female representative.

And they didn’t just sit around and play bridge. There was a war on, after all, with bond rallies to hold, bandages to wrap, blood drives to run. All very important work, she thought, but not too punishing. The kind of genteel activities befitting the women around her—who, she noticed anew, almost always acted more to the manner born than their husbands. It seemed that many a senator had married up on his way to office.

But not everything was going to be a cinch.

It was a Tuesday, and Jeff was talking to Harry Truman after adjournment. Jeff didn’t approve of the way Truman had gotten into the Senate, but they were on friendly enough terms. They spoke of the day’s events, of the victory at Monte Cassino, of the reception that they were to attend that night for General MacArthur. Just before their conversation ended, Senator Truman’s wife entered.

“Excuse me, Jeff, might I have a word?”

“Why, sure, Bess. What is it?”

“Jeff, when you get home tonight, could you please call and let me know how Clarissa’s doing?”

He blanched. “How she’s doing? What happened?”

“Well, we toured Walter Reed today, and she seemed to take it all pretty badly—worse than the rest of us, I’d say, though it wasn’t easy for anyone.”

She put a hand on his arm.

“Not while we were there, mind you. You’d have been real proud of her. She shook hands with burn victims and amputees and everything. Read letters to the boys from your state. They all loved her. But afterward, well, she just kind of fell apart, that’s all. We thought we’d better take her home.”

Jeff squinted in disbelief. “That doesn’t sound like Clarissa, Bess. After all, she’s no shrinking violet, and—”

“Never mind, Jeff,” she interrupted. “Just make sure she’s all right.”

His eyes darted across the room. “Well, I suppose I could drop by before the reception, but I’ve got my suit all pressed and ready and—”

And then he looked at Mrs. Truman’s face, which was registering something close to contempt.

“Jeff, go home and stop taking your wife for granted.”

Senator Truman looked as if he were about to intervene. But the arrow had hit its target. Jeff scrambled for his briefcase, asked his aide to clear the schedule, and raced out of the building.

He found Clarissa in her nightclothes and dressing gown, poring over some papers on her desk.

“Listen, Jeff,” she said without looking up. “If you really want to get a handle on that Anti-Subsidy Bill, I think you should take a look at what the O.P.A. is saying about the Little Steel Formula. You see—”

“Riss.”

She looked up with an embarrassed half-smile.

“Bess can be an old mother hen sometimes.”

“Is that so?” He sat down next to her.

She swallowed. “What’d she tell you, anyway?”

Jeff hesitated. He reckoned that some of the day's events didn't need to be revisited.

“She said I ought to be proud of you.”

A sickly pall came over her face.

“Then she’s a liar, too.”

Jeff couldn’t stand seeing her like that. “Now come on, Riss,” he said. “You’re starting to scare me. What’s going on?”

She closed her eyes and took in a ragged breath.

“It was _Boys’ Stuff_ all over again.”

She’d never quite gotten over that. The night of the filibuster, she’d become so swept up in the effort to subvert the Taylor news blockade that she hadn’t considered the risks of using those Boy Rangers to spread the word. In truth, she wasn’t entirely to blame—Jeff’s mother had been just as keen, the kids were willing, and it hadn’t occurred to her that even the Taylor gang would stoop so low as to harm them. But they had, bad enough to send eight- and twelve-year-olds across the state to the hospital. She’d made the rounds then, too, and she would be forever haunted by the idea that it was her doing.

“Riss, I’m sorry. But we’re talking about soldiers here. Why would you think that—”

“Because I had a hand in this too, Jeff.”

“What?”

“You didn’t want us to get into the war, but I—”

He stood up. “Yes, you convinced me otherwise. And you were right! You know you were. Pearl Harbor or no Pearl Harbor, I was a fool to think we’d stay out of it. Honestly, Riss, what’s gotten into you? You at least kept me from getting mixed up with those America Firsters. You at least got it into my head that their patriotism was as phony as a wooden nickel. And do you really want to blame somebody for all of this? Because, by golly, I can think of some men with funny mustaches who played a heck of a bigger role than you!”

He stopped himself.

“I’m sorry, Riss. But you’re just not making sense.”

“Of course I don’t blame myself for the war,” she replied quietly, without looking at him. “It’s just, well, there was a time when politics was just a spectator sport to me—a glorified ping pong game. And I could laugh it off because I had no skin in that game beyond a paycheck.”

Her eyes met his.

“But it isn’t that, Jeff. It’s holding millions of kids by the throat and deciding whether they’ll live or die. And you and I, we play a part in that.”

Jeff sighed. “Oh, so that’s what’s got you. The responsibility.”

She nodded.

“Well, goodness knows it gets to me, too. But you can’t blame yourself for that, either. You’ve got to take a bird’s eye view of these things sometimes, or you’ll go nuts. Believe me, I’m learning that real fast.”

He then beckoned her out of her seat, folded his arms around her, and lowered his voice to a hush.

“And you were never as hard as all that, Riss. If you were, you’d have left your poor sap of a husband in the dust a long time ago.”

She tilted her head back to look at him. “I nearly did, back then.”

He nodded. “And I would’ve deserved it.”

Jeff held her for a while—a long while—until she grew sleepy and wanted to lie down.

He continued to talk to her. “You work too hard, Riss. That’s a fact.”

“You should talk,” she answered groggily into her pillow.

And after a few minutes—

“Riss, I’m a heel.”

“Mmmhmmm.”

“Oh, well, fine!” he exclaimed with a laugh.

She propped her head up on one elbow. “I give up, Jeff. How are you a heel?”

“Because while you’ve been wallowing in misery, I’ve gotta admit, I’ve been enjoying the heck out of this.”

She smiled without opening her eyes. “Must be our first night alone in a year.”

He reached out and stroked her hair. “Just about. But you’re tired.”

“You said it,” she slurred.

“Good night, Riss.”

“Good night.”

Three hours later, Clarissa awoke with a start.

“Holy cats! MacArthur!”

“I’m sure he survived without us,” Jeff mumbled before going back to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

By the war’s end, Jeff had performed a neat trick: He’d become a senator, but not a politician.

At least, that’s how the papers framed it. But it wasn’t strictly true. In fact, the Boy Wonder of the West was proving wilier than anyone expected. Whenever the representative of some interest group or other came knocking at his door, he could count on a strong handshake, a heaping dose of gee-whiz-it-sure-is-nice-to-meet-you charm, and the offer of a seat. And he’d leave before discovering that all those promises he thought he’d extracted from the good senator amounted to nothing but fairy dust.

Dishonest? Some tried to make that case. But those who knew Jeff knew what was really going on. He did it all in the service of a greater honesty. He would be beholden to no one but the voters.

It meant a shoestring budget—more so than for most senators, as neither he nor Clarissa came from money, and they would accept no more than a hundred dollars from any single campaign donor. And they were kept ferociously busy, though on evenings when Diz Moore swung by the office with a bottle and the latest Washington scuttlebutt, he was not turned away.

“You see how it is, Diz,” Jeff explained to him one night, “it’s like finding your way back out of the woods, the kind of thicket where hardly any light gets in. And you can’t avoid the muck of it, either. Ideals are important, I’ve discovered, but purity is suicide. The trick is to remember to keep those ideals fresh in your mind’s eye, whatever you’re doing, so you’ll always find your way to them.”

“Aw, Ma,” Diz sniffled, clutching Clarissa’s shoulder and giving her a maudlin pout, “Our little boy’s all grown up.”

She shook him off. “Oh, cut it out!”

Soon, there was talk of re-election. Jeff jokingly responded to a reporter’s inquiry by saying that, while the hours were terrible, it was steady work and he’d like to keep at it. He risked getting complacent, Clarissa thought—after all, it never took long for today’s young Turks to become tomorrow’s old guard. But Jeff had new ambitions for his second term—he was even preparing to do battle with some powerful mining interests to pass a new clean water bill. Clarissa had one or two ideas herself. And she couldn’t see any serious challengers on the horizon.

Certainly no one took seriously the blathering of one Norm D. DuPlat, a short, kooky-looking town councilman from one of the state’s western mining communities. Armed with a degree from a place called Minnewaska Bible College, he dressed in dusty slacks, swooned like a tent revival preacher, and rambled on about the bomb, the communist menace, and a godless cabal that was taking over the country. And who of all people was a member of it? Why, our very own Jefferson Smith, that’s who!

He toured the state, popping up in any town big enough for a post office. In his speeches, he began casting aspersions on Senator Smith’s patriotism—which gave the folks in Washington a good laugh—but also his faith and his character.

“Have you folks ever seen hide or hair of our good senator in a church? Have you wondered why you have never seen him praying? Do you know what he gets up to in Washington? And are you folks sure he’s still the apple-cheeked choirboy of ‘39?”

Before long, though, DuPlat also seemed to catch on to the idea that some voters cared more about the here than the hereafter. So he changed tactics. He trotted out the old line about the Willet Creek dam, that it would have cut their electricity bills—never mind the hydrologists calling it nonsense, he said, who listens to those eggheads anyway? And he took to waving around a picture of Senator Smith—this same defender of freedom and Americanism, ladies and gentlemen—shaking hands with a Soviet envoy.

“But that was 1943! They were our allies!” Jeff exclaimed near the end of the radio broadcast. “Look, everyone knows I’m no fan of communism, but what was I supposed to do, spit in their eyes?”

“Some people have a short memory, Jeff,” said Diz before turning the dial.

Clarissa leaned back in her chair. “Do you think this guy’s got any Taylor money behind him?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me a bit. Shame you folks couldn’t do away with all of it.”

“We tried,” she said, “but even if we fumigated the whole state, that wouldn’t do it. There’d still be Taylor cronies lurking behind some corner or other. Still, this fellow’s such a clown. Might mean they’re getting desperate.”

Jeff rested his head against his hand. “I just hate how personal this stuff gets. Have campaigns always been this dirty?”

“Yes,” Diz and Clarissa replied in flat unison, which startled him.

“Oh. Well, I don’t know. Somehow, I can’t picture the Founding Fathers slinging mud at each other this way.”

Diz grinned. “Funny you should say that, Jeff. I was talking to a historian at the Library of Congress the other day, and he said that back in 1800, Thomas Jefferson paid a fellow to print an article calling John Adams a hermaphrodite.”

Clarissa nearly spat out her drink. That was a new one.

Jeff squinted. “A what?”

“A her—” but that was all Diz could get out before doubling over with laughter.   

Seeing as she was going to get no help from him, an uncomfortable Clarissa turned back to her husband.

“Never mind, darling. I’ll explain later.”

After Jeff had left the office for a second, she backed Diz up against a wall.

“Listen, you!"

“Hey, what’s the big i—”

“—you know I consider you a friend, but if _one word_ of that conversation winds up on record, I will make you sorry you ever lived. Got it?”

Diz, predictably, looked more amused than threatened. 

“Not a word, kid. Scout’s honor.” He corrected himself. “Sorry. Rangers. Gotta remember who I’m dealing with here.”

But as much as they all wanted to laugh off DuPlat’s excesses, he was gaining traction. These were uncertain times: The end of the war meant the end of defense jobs, workers were striking, and the threat of the Soviet Union was looming ever-larger by the day. People were restless, and in politics, restlessness usually meant turnover.

Jeff didn’t want to take too much valuable time to go back and campaign for re-election, but he came to see that it couldn’t be avoided. There still seemed to be plenty of well-wishers in Jackson City when he returned. Then again, there were also DuPlat signs popping up everywhere. It was starting to look less and less like a sure thing.

Clarissa was on hand in her usual capacities. But truth be told, she, too, was growing restless.

Jeff made his way across the state, making speeches, shaking hands, trying to be as cheerful and sincere as he could be on command. But he couldn’t be everywhere at once, not even when a scheduling mix-up suggested otherwise. He was supposed to speak at a party luncheon, and two hours later at an assembly in Joslyn, the hometown of the state’s junior senator, Lewis Cunningham. And it was well over two hours away.

“Jeff,” Clarissa lit up, “Listen. I’ll do it. I can drive out there in—”

“I don’t see much point in it, Riss,” Jeff said without looking up from his papers. “That’s Cunningham’s territory—he won Gage County in a landslide. And DuPlat’s in his party. Let’s stick to what we _can_ win.”

“So much for lost causes,” she replied under her breath.

Jeff looked up. “Huh?”

Clarissa sprang up and grabbed the other end of the desk.

“Jeff, for heaven’s sake, _let me do something!_ ”

He was left scrambling for his thoughts. “Why, Riss, if you feel that way, of course. I mean, gosh, I thought your problem was that you do too much.”

“Yes, behind the scenes. And then a little wave at the end for the cameramen, if I’m lucky. Believe it or not, Jeff, it can get monotonous.”

Jeff ran his fingers through his hair, now salted with a few threads of gray.

“Oh. Well, go ahead if you want. But let Maggie do the driving—she knows the way around there, anyway. And try to be back early tomorrow, will you?”

Her mood brightened. “Sure thing.”

But on the drive west with Jeff’s secretary, as she tried to jot down the beginnings of a speech, the whole enterprise started to seem less and less like a sure thing. Stage fright set in.

“Oh, what am I doing?” she choked.

“You’re writing a speech, Mrs. Smith.”

“Yes. Thank you, Maggie. Now if only that steel-trap mind of yours could keep the schedule straight.”

Maggie kept her eyes on the road. “You know, just ‘cause you’re nervous, don’t mean you need to take it out on me.”

“I’m sorry. But it’s no use. I'm never going to get through to these people.”

Maggie glanced over. “May I remind you, Mrs. Smith, that _these people_ voted for women’s suffrage ten years before the rest of the country. I wouldn’t underestimate them ‘fi were you.”

“Yes, but—”

“They’re just people like anyone else. They got their small-town concerns, sure. Some even got small minds, though that ain’t exactly a rarity in Washington, either. But by and large they got the same wants and needs as you do. Same hopes for the country. So just show ‘em that. Cain’t be hard.”

Clarissa breathed. “I’ll try.”

But an hour later, she threw down her notepad and scoffed in frustration. Maggie noticed.

“Check the glove compartment,” she said.

Clarissa did, and produced a flask of bourbon.

“Maggie, I don’t think—”

“Just one swig, mind you,” she said. “This ain’t no time to go on a bender. But it’ll take the edge off.”

Clarissa raised an eyebrow. “You’re awfully sure of yourself, aren’t you? What are you, nineteen?”

“Twenty-two, this week. Senator Smith said you were sixteen when you started working.”

“Yes, but that was different, I—”

“I’m sure it is, Mrs. Smith. But keep writing. We’re almost there.”

They arrived at the Gage County High School in Joslyn, which was decked out in red, white, and blue bunting. And, to their surprise, packed to the hilt.

“Didn’t you say there were only 3,000 people in the whole county?” Clarissa whispered into Maggie’s ear.

“Yes, ma’am,” she replied with an uneasy grin, trying not to look as caught off guard. “And, well, here they are.”

Clarissa noticed with some trepidation the same stony look that always seemed to greet her in such places. Even the children’s faces were stern. But she ascended the podium and cleared her throat.

She spoke of unity, of the things that bound so many different kinds of people together in this minor miracle that was America. She spoke of the war, of the boys at Walter Reed, and of the need to make this country one that was worthy of them. She spoke of fighting greed and graft and ignorance. She spoke of labor rights. She spoke of America’s new role on the world stage. And, taking her cue from Maggie, she spoke of the state’s proud history in getting women the vote. She said how much it thrilled her that the younger women in the crowd never knew a world except that in which they were full, enfranchised citizens.

And since this whole trip had been a long shot anyway, she took a chance. She asked the audience to stand up, and then anyone who regretted giving their mothers and sisters and wives a vote to sit back down.

No one did.

“And there you have it,” she said, just about keeping her voice even. “I don’t think anything has ever been lost by extending those rights, by giving more people a voice. Because you need it, we all need it to fight the forces that would buy and bludgeon their way to power. And that’s why we’ve got to keep that fight going—at home, abroad, and for all kinds of people, in all walks of life. That’s what my husband does. That’s what he’ll keep doing. And I plan to help him every step of the way. We'd be honored to have you join us.” 

At first, she could hear nothing, if only because a sense of relief had flooded her mind with white noise. But it was soon drowned out by a rafter-shaking torrent of applause. Through the glare of the flashbulbs, she could see Maggie waving and clasping her hands above her head. And that rush of adrenaline—there was nothing like it. No wonder some people found office-seeking so seductive, despite its slings and arrows.

It was late, so on the way back they turned in at a shabby roadside motel. Clarissa, though exhausted, checked her sheets three times for bedbugs before turning in. The next morning, they stopped at a filling station, and to her surprise, the workers there tipped their hats and called her by name. Not long after, Maggie discovered why: a copy of the _Jackson City Star_ , which had Clarissa’s picture on the cover.

It was as if the whole place had opened up to her overnight. She was getting it from everyone: farmers, mothers, librarians, roughnecks. All with the same greeting:

“Attagirl, Riss!”

The car got a flat tire three-quarters of the way back, but even that didn’t dampen the mood for long. The first car to pass them on the roadside skidded to a stop, and a family of five leapt out. They were practically giddy to meet Clarissa—one had a copy of the _Star_ in hand—and before she could get a word in edgewise they jacked up the car, replaced the tire, and begged her to let them keep the old one as a souvenir. She and Maggie laughed about it the rest of the way back.

“I guarantee you, Mrs. Smith,” said Maggie as she gasped for breath. “That family has a stuffed elk over the fireplace, and that elk now has a rubber necklace.”

With such a reception, she thought Jeff would be all but ecstatic. But he said nothing. She couldn’t understand it. What was the matter? Did he think she’d upstaged him? But he’d never had an ego like that before. What gives?

When they sat down to a late lunch, there was palpable tension between them. But then Jeff spoke up:

“I, uh, I hear there may be an upset in Gage County.”

“Could be.” She feigned nonchalance and passed over a napkin.

He caught her hand.

“Riss.”

She looked up to see his face, now far less boyish than the one she’d encountered at their first meeting, overcome with shy delight.

“By golly, is there anything you can’t do?”

She beamed and ducked her head. “I can think of a few things.”

“Like what?”

“Like camping.”

He frowned with mock petulance. “That’s a ‘won’t,’ not a ‘can’t.’”

“You don’t know that!” she teased. “I might be terrible at it. For all you know, I’d be eaten by wolves on the very first day, and it would be all your fault.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Somehow, I doubt it.”

And then, more seriously—

“Tell me what I did to deserve you, Riss, and I’ll make a daily habit of it. I promise.”


	5. Chapter 5

In the short term, it was a coup. Everyone wanted to meet Clarissa, and the applause that greeted her at rallies just about equaled her husband’s. Maggie even started referring to her as “our own Mrs. Roosevelt,” despite her vehement protests.

But there were less happy consequences to that speech. One might even call them disastrous.

For it couldn’t have been a coincidence that DuPlat, who’d previously aimed all his venom at Senator Smith alone, now apparently considered his wife fair game.

To be fair, the first charge he lobbed at Clarissa, that of nepotism, had a little merit. She’d been on the payroll as Jeff’s secretary up until 1943. That wasn’t unusual in those days—politicians often hired their wives. But she could see why popular opinion was turning against it. And it certainly didn’t look good for a senator who’d built his entire career around fighting corruption.

The second charge, that she wore the pants in their marriage, was nothing new, though it inspired some unflattering editorial cartoons.

DuPlat even tried the Red-baiting approach, which fizzled once it became clear that the signature on that Spanish Civil War petition was not “Clarissa Saunders,” but “Cassandra Smithers.”

Then came the tidal wave.

Clarissa, you see, had not been one of those girls who’d married straight out of high school. She’d had a career. A life. And though in a saner world this wouldn’t have surprised or bothered anyone, she’d lived it without taking a vow of chastity.

The rumors spread, and reporters seemed hopelessly unable to untangle the truth from the lies. Names were tossed around. Senator Foley's. Paine's. She was known for palling around with the fellows in the press gallery. Had she—with them? And what of that document, the one that seemed to show her sharing the address of a Georgetown medical student for six months?

Maggie, ever-loyal, suggested that she sue the old so-and-sos for libel. Clarissa nodded. But she knew she couldn’t. It would have meant publicly acknowledging that one of those claims was _not_ a lie.

Now, if she’d been forced to consider such a scenario beforehand, she’d have been uncomfortable but still certain that she would rise above it. For though there were times when she’d be moved to tears by the plight of others, she reserved that for others. Not herself. She’d be fine. Always.

That’s how she’d been brought up. Her father, a charitably inclined doctor, used to silence any complaints by asking if she’d trade places with one of his indigent patients. When nine-year-old Clarissa broke her arm, he kissed her on the forehead after she’d remained calm and still while he set it. He made sure that she memorized that famous Kipling poem about character (“If you can keep your head when all about you/Are losing theirs and blaming it on you…”), and she still knew all four stanzas by heart. (“If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew/To serve your turn long after they are gone/And so hold on when there is nothing in you/Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’”)

All of it made her who she was. Somehow, none of it prepared her for this.

Not the accusations themselves, but the way they seemed to make the world shift and harden before her eyes.

She received fewer lunch invitations and more stares. Were they hostile? Lecherous? Merely a startled reaction to her own wary gaze? It had become hard to tell.  But that time she got in a cab only to have the driver smirk at her through the rear-view mirror and say, “So you’re the famous Mrs. Smith,” it made her want to jump out of her skin. She opened the door and ran out.

And those anonymous phone calls—but the less said about that, the better.

She saw less of her friends, if only because of the gnawing, paranoid sensation that she didn’t know who they were anymore, or which might further damage her reputation.

“You’d better go, Diz,” she said when he came on one of his visits.

“What?”

“Someone might get the wrong idea.”

“Aw, for the love of—”  

“I mean it, Diz. Please go.”

It wasn’t easy to knock the high spirits out of Diz Moore. But that had done it.

“Listen, kid. No one’s pinning a scarlet ‘A’ on you. You'll see. This’ll blow over." But there was a distinct wobble in his voice. He couldn't reassure her, or himself.

Clarissa turned back to her work and would say no more.

It got to the point where she hesitated to step outside the office—even down to the Senate Dining Room. But she willed herself there one afternoon, a choice that she almost immediately regretted. For there was portly, bushy-haired Lewis Cunningham, asking if he could grab the seat across from her. She wished she’d refused—he’d obviously come down there on a mission—but at first he did nothing but bury his head in the paper.

“Don’t know what’s gotten into the State Department these days,” he said after a while. “They’re sending an exhibition to Europe, you know—so-called ‘modern art.’ Chicken scratch, I say. Supposed to represent the country, all these demented scribbles. Give me Winslow Homer any day.”

She didn’t respond. 

He looked up from the paper. “But of course, you Vassar gals probably go nuts over that stuff.”

“I didn’t go to Vassar,” she said with strained civility.

“Or Barnard, wherever they sent you.”

“I never went to college, Senator Cunningham. Just night school.”

He lowered the paper. “You’re kidding!” And then, almost to himself, “Well, I’ll be.”

Clarissa put her napkin down and grabbed her purse. But before she’d gotten her things together—

“You’re the real senator, Mrs. Smith. Don’t think I don’t know that.”

She froze.

He shifted over to her. “Your husband, well, he’s a real nice fellow, even if I don’t often agree with him. But he’s a paper tiger. Never mind who speaks in the chamber—it’s been you all along.”

Clarissa’s eyes narrowed. “I beg your pardon, Senator. I happen to think my husband does fine work for our state. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

“Wait a minute!” he exclaimed.

Something in his face changed.

“Did—did you think I was making a pass at you?”

“The thought had occurred to me,” she muttered.

All of a sudden, Senator Cunningham looked mortified. He put a hand to his head.

“Oh Christ, I’m sorry. No. That’s the last thing you need.”

Clarissa tentatively returned to her seat.

“But that’s not it at all. Please believe me. Y—you have my _respect_ , Mrs. Smith. I respect your work—all those vital little things that too often go unnoticed. And I think it’s terrible that some people aren’t showing you the same respect right now.”

He closed his eyes.

“I never cared for DuPlat, but if the party wanted him I wasn’t about to stand in its way. But now—what’s happening right now—it’s disgusting. It’s no way to treat a lady.”

Clarissa looked down with a rueful smile. "Some lady."

Senator Cunningham made sure to block that retreat into self-effacement.

"Yes, Mrs. Smith," was his emphatic reply. "Some lady."

“Well, that’s nice of you, Senator. But let's not kid around. I'm no stranger here—I should have known. It was bound to happen. Any time you stick your neck out—" 

"Mrs. Smith," he interrupted. "I've got a little granddaughter back home. Five years old."

He fished through his pocket and produced a wallet, which he opened and handed over. 

"Last year, she wanted to be a queen. But now she knows we don't have queens in this country, so she says she wants to be president. Now, just what am I supposed to tell her? 'Forget it, kid, don't stick your neck out?'"

The man sure knew how to stack a deck. For in case his words didn't drive the point home, the insistent stare from the tiny face in that wallet did.

"No," Clarissa whispered.

“But you deserve better than this," he said as he packed up his things. "Mark my words.”

Noble sentiments, no doubt. But she was sure it was all talk.

Maybe she shouldn’t have been. In hindsight, she couldn’t rule out the possibility that he had something to do with the news that came out next—some secret dirt-digging, perhaps? A benevolent act of sabotage? For a week after that encounter, some new information appeared about Jeff’s rival. It seems that DuPlat had never gone to Minnewaska Bible College—all he had was a forged diploma and a friend on its staff who’d lied on his behalf. And though he had no academic record, he did have a criminal one: a drunk-driving charge in Louisiana, for which he’d never paid the fine.

Could this turn the tables? Clarissa was afraid to hope for it. She tried to bring the subject up with Jeff when they were driven to the station. But he was off in a dream world.

“There go some old friends,” he said with a wan smile as they rode past the Washington and Lincoln memorials.

That was the worst part. He was dodging the subject. She'd come to regard his innocence as an endearing quirk rather than an affectation, but now he seemed to be cocooning himself in it. And shutting her out.

She couldn’t bear to think of what that might mean—for the campaign, for the marriage, for everything.

 


	6. Chapter 6

Clarissa thought at least the long-awaited August recess—the first the Senate had taken since the end of the war—might do them some good. And for the first time ever, she was glad to leave Washington, though she had a sinking feeling that it would be a trip from the frying pan into the fire. If those cosmopolitan types in the nation's capital had turned on her, Lord knew what would happen back there.

The trip certainly didn’t start out well, for there was DuPlat and his crew holding an event by the Jackson City station. Worse yet, one of his publicity men turned away and took it upon himself to greet his employer’s rival.

“Mighty fine day, Senator." His face stretched into an obnoxious grin.

Jeff tried to ignore him and move on, but he found his path blocked.

“Sorry to hear about your troubles down in Washington. Must be quite a burden.”

“I think your boss has his own troubles to attend to, sir,” Jeff replied absently as he looked for a way out. 

“Hah! Him? Not a care in the world. We paid the fine last week—just a simple oversight, you see. And church folks will forgive a repentant sinner. Mining folks will vote the way the owners tell ‘em to. Nah, Senator, we ain’t worried.”

He grabbed Jeff by the arm.

“But you—you oughta be.”

Jeff fobbed him off and strode away. The man trailed him.

“Yes sir, you oughta be. People are starting to question your judgment. We’ve all met, uh, women of the world, if you’ll pardon the expression. But it takes a real sucker to marry one.”

A few gasps escaped from some bystanders, which turned into shrieks when Jeff turned around and gave the man what he had coming to him. Not that it pleased the subject of the brawl. Not in the slightest.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Clarissa shouted at him after he’d finished. “Things aren’t bad enough? You want the world to think you’re a violent lunatic?”

Maggie caught her attention. “I beg your pardon, ma’am, but you’re forgetting where you are. There’s such a thing as frontier justice. And you can bet he’d-a lost every vote in the state if he HADN’T clocked him.”

“Nobody asked you, Maggie,” Clarissa snapped.

She turned back to her disheveled husband.

“You—you’ve embarrassed me beyond words, Jeff. Do you hear me? You’ve sunk us down to a level I never thought I’d see. Not in a million years. We’re supposed to be decent human beings! That’s supposed to be the _difference_ between us and them. Don’t you get that? I don’t care about frontier justice, or defending my honor, or any of that bunk. I don’t need defending. I just need you to _grow the hell up!_ ”

“Mrs. Smith—” Maggie called out in reproach.

“I’m not interested, Maggie!”

She marched to the car.

It felt like a tinderbox on the ride home. Finally, she spoke up.

“With all the talk that's been going around, Jeff, you’ve never said a word about it. Not one.”

“I’m not interested,” Jeff murmured, his eyes still fixed outside.

“Really? I thought you might be,” Clarissa said, hoping to provoke him out of distraction. “You might have wondered whether there's any truth to it. Whether I did live with a man for those six months.”

No answer.

“Whether he was my first, by any account.”

Nothing.

“Whether there’s a reason I’m so sure we can’t have children.”

She regretted going that far. This was not the time for that conversation; it should have taken place years before. But at least it got him to turn around.

He didn’t respond, though. Nothing until they reached their house and got out of the car—

“Boy, I’m sunk,” said Jeff with an empty laugh. “I really am. If DuPlat can even get _you_ to believe him—”

“What?”

“Riss, am I that much of a rube to you? Were you under the impression that I thought you were gunning for a sainthood? Is that why you think I married you?”

“We’ll discuss this inside,” she hissed.

“We’ll discuss it out here!” he shouted.

“I fell for you, Clarissa, because you gave me no choice! Because falling’s the only thing a man _can_ do when he’s knocked flat on his back! Because you saved my life, and you save it again and again—each time I’ve got to face those damned jackals in Washington. And because—”

He took an anguished pause.

“—because you’ve got—I don’t know what it is, but it’s the same thing that kept Ma going when Dad was killed. And call me an overgrown baby if you like, but I knew I needed someone like that. I’ve known it all my life.”

The tears that had sprung into his eyes embarrassed him. He turned away.

“—and if you’re wondering why I never spoke about what happened, it’s because I knew I’d get all broken up like this. Which tells you what kind of man I am, I guess. A damned sorry excuse for one.”

He turned back around, almost afraid to look. She was there, as unsteady and bleary-eyed as he was. He grabbed her and pressed her to him, his eyes clenched shut.

“Oh Riss, what kind of life have I given you? All that I've put you through—so help me, I’ll never forgive myself for it.”

Clarissa wept. She’d had months of it bottled up inside her. It should be said, though, that these were not the sobs of a broken woman, but one on the mend. The election might be as good as lost, for all she knew. But not everything was.

Both were silent for a while.

“Jeff,” Clarissa looked over at him. “What I said before, I—”

“Never mind.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Jeff. You know how people are. This could cost you the election.”

"And you think that's what I care about?" he replied, looking a little stung. "All that matters is that my wife's being attacked by a bunch of goons, and I can't seem to do a thing about it.”

So that was it. No disgust. No judgment. Just helpless frustration. In retrospect, she should have known.

Jeff stared out at the street. “I want to make this right. I want it like nothing else in the world. I fought to save my own skin, and with your help. But now when it comes to fighting for you, I—I’m stumped.”

“I don’t think fighting’ll do it," she mused soberly. "Better that we sit tight. Sit tight, and hope that the voters care about more important things. You once said you believed in them. Remember?”

That response didn’t seem to satisfy him, but he nodded.

“Also—”

“Yes?” His eyes searched hers.

Her face broke into a bashful smile. She felt a little ridiculous saying it.

“Well, maybe you could also take me camping."

“Riss,” he sighed, “you don’t have to make light of—”

“I’m not.”

She swallowed.

“I mean it. I want to do it. I want to see what you love about this place, once and for all. I want to get away from all the prying eyes and the gossips and the whole dirty business of it. I want to go somewhere where we can breathe again. And I know there’s no time for it, but—"

A shudder overtook her. She buried her face in his shoulder.

“Jeff, I want out of this tunnel.”

“It’ll happen, Riss,” he said with quiet resolve, his cheek resting against her head. "I'll make sure of it.”


	7. Chapter 7

Friday night through Sunday. Forty-eight hours. Hardly enough to do much, and not nearly enough time for the national park that Jeff had always wanted her to see, which was nearly two-hundred miles away. Mustang country, he told her. You’d have loved that.

Still, you didn’t have to drive far outside Jackson City to reach real wilderness, and the spot that they settled in had plenty of natural beauty to spare: soft, grassy ridges, tall peaks mottled with spruce, tangles of blue sagebrush, and water that raced over rocks with a relentless, full-throated roar. And that air—a clean, bracing tonic that filled Clarissa’s lungs to the point of bursting. She’d never known anything like it.

They were different people out there. They walked and ran and splashed through water and horsed around with abandon, as if they were two kids who’d met at a picnic. Not a man and woman, now closer to forty than fourteen, who’d been thrown together by a strange hiccup of fate and had run themselves ragged trying to make the best of it.

He taught her the skills and tricks he’d taught the Boy Rangers. She gasped at the sight of white-tailed deer racing across a clearing.

And that night, as Jeff stoked the campfire, she found she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the sky.

“It isn’t fair, you know.”

“What isn’t?” Jeff took out his pocket knife to cut a branch.

She shook her head. “All this time, you people have been hoarding all of the best stars. Why, I’ll bet there are thousands here that haven’t shown their faces east of the Mississippi.”

He grinned. “I’ll tell you what: When we get back, we’ll draft a bill to lease some of ‘em to the Eastern Seaboard. How’s that?”

“Perfect,” she said.

He set the branch down and sat beside her.

“You know, I hate to bring it up, but I can’t help but notice: You never asked me.”

“About what?”

Jeff wrung his hands. “Well, about any skeletons in… my closet.”

Clarissa shot him an amused glance. “Because you have none.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Yes, I do.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Jeff, if nothing else, I saw you with Susan Paine. You were a babe in the woods.”

“Well, then,” he huffed with false swagger, “I just hadn’t gotten used to Washington women, is all. Out here, I’ll have you know, they call me the Casanova of the Prairie.”

Clarissa fell back, giggling.

“Not buying it, eh?”

“Nope.”

As he looked down at her, his smile faded.

“Riss?”

“Yeah?”

“I hope I lose.”

“What?” She shot upright.

“I said, I hope I lose. I hope I lose and get out of politics and find some job I don’t particularly like. And I’d get home at five-thirty and you’d be there to greet me and you’d complain about how bored you’ve been all day.”

A trace of mirth returned to Clarissa’s face.

“—and over dinner, I’d ask if you put something new in the chicken, and you’d say ‘tarragon,’ and I’d say, ‘I hate tarragon,’”

She stifled another laugh. “And this is your idea of a dream marriage?”

“Well, you didn’t let me finish.”

He leaned over her and whispered:

“And then we could take the phone off the hook and just be two people, in our home, living our lives together. Now, what do you say to that?”

“Jeff,” Clarissa was now serious, “could you live with yourself knowing you let DuPlat win?”

He sighed.

“No. But a fellow can dream, can’t he?”

“Well, sure. But I’ll tell you, I wouldn’t want that kind of life, either. As rotten as politics can be sometimes, I just don’t think I’m built for anything else. It's just too important. And too fascinating. I couldn't give it up.”

“And you can still say that after all of this?”

“Crazy, isn’t it?”

Jeff nodded. “Well, maybe you should take over someday.”

“Maybe I will,” she said, returning her gaze skyward.

He kept looking at her. He tilted his head.

“Thought so.”

“What?”

“Oh, nothing.” He perched on his elbows. “It’s just that, well, even when I thought I’d never get you out here, I’d always tried to picture what you’d look like in firelight. Usually you can’t do that, you know. When you love someone, that person always becomes more of an idea to you than a face. Which is a dirty trick for a mind to play, because I want you in there for all time. But I kept trying. And I—” the back of his hand brushed her temple “—for once, I think I got it just about right.”

At such moments, Clarissa couldn’t help but grow a little exasperated with herself. A part of her was still deeply embarrassed to be such an easy mark for his cornpone sweet talk. To be overwhelmed and made flushed and breathless by it. For Pete’s sake, she was supposed to be above this! After all, she wasn’t given a brain just to—but never mind. She also had enough sense to know when she was getting in her own way.

“You don’t look so bad yourself,” she replied.

She drew him toward her. It had become chilly enough that Jeff accidentally breathed steam into her face after their kiss, which made him pull back a little. But only a little.

His eyes lit on her, then on their tent, then back to her. Silent, but unmistakable. An invitation.

“I don’t think there’s room in there, Jeff,” said Clarissa with a slightly crooked smile.

He shook his head.

“Always the skeptic.”


	8. Chapter 8

Diz Moore would have sawed off his right arm for a drink. Anything. Even coffee—in fact, he knew that staying up on Election Night without it was going to be murder. No, the doctor said. Not with that ulcer. No booze, no coffee.

But he figured there was no saving his battered old stomach now, anyway. The race had become a real nail-biter, despite DuPlat's obvious unfitness for office. It was either man’s game.

And it ripped Diz up like no other race he’d seen.

Over the past seven years, he’d managed to keep that torch down to a dim flicker. Clarissa had become a different person, after all. Earnest. Causey. Less inclined to sit back and laugh at the world with him. He still cared for her, but for the first time in ages, he’d been able to conjure visions of the future that didn’t revolve around her. And Jeff was a good man. Clarissa loved him. Diz wasn’t about to muck that up.

But then DuPlat came along with his smear campaign, and all the old feelings came rushing back. He hated to see her shrink back from the world, and he found himself tormented by the thought that he could have kept her from experiencing all of that ugliness. If only he could have done it. If only he could’ve convinced her to—

“Forget it, pal,” he interrupted that train of thought out loud. “It don’t work like that.”

He heard the phone. Picked it up mid-ring.

“Mr. Desmond Moore, please, Jackson Cit—”

“SPEAKING!” He barked.

The operator connected them.

“Hello, Diz?”

His heart lodged in his throat. “Yeah, kid?”

Her voice was low and hoarse. “Well, that settles it.”

Damn it all to hell, he thought. He’d have that drink. He didn’t care anymore.

“Yes sir, time for another ride on the merry-go-round.”

Diz heard music behind her. And cheering.

He leapt out of his seat.  “Wait a minute, he won?”

“Why, sure! Didn’t it come over the wire yet?”

A secretary brought it over to him: Smith: 52, DuPlat: 48.

He shook his head.

“Shoulda been unanimous.”

“Well, we’ll take what we can get.”

He hesitated.

“Kid—are you all right?”

“Me? Of course!”

“Then why does it sound like you’ve had the waterworks on all night?”

“Oh, that,” she laughed. “Well, come on, Diz. This kind of thing takes it out of you. And you don’t know what it’s like to take on someone who fights that dirty and still come out on top. Quite a feeling, I can tell you.”

“Kid, I”—his voice cracked—“I have some idea.”

This was her moment—hers and Jeff’s, that is. He knew that. Yet he couldn’t help but ask one question:

“I sure hated to see what you went through this year. Tell me the truth: Are you still sure that mug’s worth it?”

“Diz,” she said gently, “even if he wasn’t, this is about more than him. A lot more. You know that, don’t you?”

“I do.” He tried not to sound too defeated.

“Well, I’d better get back. See you in January?”

He detected a spark of eagerness in her voice, which lifted his spirits a little. It was enough. Or at least it’d have to be.

“Sure, kid. See you in January.”

**Author's Note:**

> This story is downbeat in places—my only defense for that is that Capra, too, usually made it dark before the dawn. It's also meant to be a touch more morally complex than the original. But throughout it all, I've tried to stay true to the characters, and to the idea that people of integrity exist everywhere, in many different forms, and that they have what it takes to prevail. 
> 
> It isn't as good as it should be. It's also wayyyy too long. But I hope you'll find it entertaining, at-times funny, and in some way meaningful. Happy Yuletide!


End file.
